


These Fall-in-Loves

by Daisy_Rivers



Series: These Fall-in-Loves [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Sex, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 10:52:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11735541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Rivers/pseuds/Daisy_Rivers
Summary: You think Rafael is way out of your league. You might be wrong.





	These Fall-in-Loves

**Author's Note:**

> It may be that someday (maybe when I'm ninety), I will be able to think about Rafa without my imagination going immediately to smut. Or maybe not. Smut aside, though, the man is brilliant and incredibly talented, so I hope this will encourage you to listen to his Spoken Word and music, and read his poetry.

You’ve known Rafael for months, sort of. He’s a friend of a friend, and so you run into him at parties and at people’s houses. Sometimes he’s with a girl, but more often than not, he’s on his own, or with his best friend Daveed. At first you thought they were gay, but your friend Jasmine sets you straight on that.

“Daveed and Rafa?” she asks, her eyebrows almost in her hair. “You’re kidding, right?”

You shrug. You have totally defective gaydar. Or straight-dar, or whatever the hell it is. They’re just friends – or rather, not just friends, lifelong best friends, but still, according to Jasmine, definitely not gay. Not that it would matter. You’re pretty sure neither one of them knows your name.

You’re not good at conversation, and Daveed and Rafa are usually surrounded by a crowd of people, laughing and talking. You sit off to the side, sipping a drink and watching. They’re funny, and both of them are gorgeous, but Rafa – what is about Rafa that makes you keep looking at him? His eyes, maybe. They’re blue-green-gray, depending on the weather and his mood, and what he wears. You check when you can to see what color they are at that particular moment. Once or twice he catches you looking and gives you a quizzical smile. You smile back, lamely, you think, and hope he doesn’t think you’re weird. He doesn’t say anything to you, but a few weeks ago, he asked Jasmine what your name was.

She tells you about it the next day while the two of you are having coffee, and your heart starts beating faster. You remind yourself not to be an idiot. He was probably just wondering who the awkward silent girl off in the corner was and why anybody invited her to anything. You say as much to Jasmine.

“Actually,” Jasmine says, taking a sip of her coffee to deliberately build suspense, “He said you look interesting.”

“Interesting?” you ask. “Interesting like Gal Gadot or interesting like a triceratops skeleton?”

Jasmine snorts. “Oh, definitely the triceratops. In fact, he said that you reminded him of a horned dinosaur – or wait, maybe it was horny?”

You can’t help laughing. “Shut up,” you tell her.

She drinks some more coffee. “You know, coming from Rafa, interesting is really a compliment.”

You’re ripping your empty sugar packet into tiny pieces. “Really?”

“Listen Y/N, Rafa can have any pretty girl he wants,” Jasmine assures you. “They throw themselves at him.”

Good to know.

“But,” she goes on, “I think he gets bored with all the Barbie clones. He wants somebody he can talk to. Somebody smart, like you are. Like he is.”

There’s no doubt that Rafa’s smart. Brilliant, really. You’ve been reading his poetry on his website, and it leaves you breathless. As far as you can tell, he is way, way out of your league.

“I’m not smart like he is,” you tell Jasmine.

“Don’t put yourself down like that,” Jasmine tells you, exasperated. No wonder, because she’s been telling you the same thing since seventh grade, and you are still hopeless in the self-confidence department. You do okay. You like your job as an editor, and you’re good at it, but when you think of someone like Rafa, you honestly can’t imagine what he would see in you.

“Anyway,” Jasmine goes on, “He’ll be at Anthony’s cookout on Friday, so at least smile at him or something.”

You promise that you will do your best to smile.

On Friday, you shower when you get home from work, and put on cute jeans and a camisole under a red and white striped shirt. Your hair is still the same ordinary color that it’s always been, in the same ordinary style. It’s okay, but nothing special. At the last minute, you put on some red lipstick, even though it makes you feel a little silly.

Pretty much everybody you know is at the cookout. You’re more at ease with people that you’ve known for a long time, like Jasmine and her fiancé Anthony, who have been in love since middle school. You know Lin and his girlfriend Pippa pretty well too. Lin is friends with Anthony, so you met him years ago, and he’s been seeing Pippa for nearly two years now. There are more than twenty people scattered over the patio and the yard, and wandering in and out of the house, and most of them you only know to say hello to. You keep smiling, though, remembering Jasmine’s advice.

Somebody has set up a volleyball net across the back of the yard, and Anthony and Daveed have somehow ended up as team captains. Of course Daveed picks Rafa first, and Anthony picks Lin, which makes the game over almost before it starts, since Daveed is at least four inches taller than either of them, and Lin is hopeless at sports. It is, in fact, a massacre. You’re standing with everyone else laughing as Daveed’s team scores point after point. It’s over in twenty minutes, and Daveed and Rafa high-five each other like they just won the Olympics.

“Never again,” Anthony swears as he gets a drink from the cooler. “Next year it’s baseball.”

You’re trying to figure out how he plans to put a baseball diamond in his yard when you hear your name. You know whose voice it is before you turn around, and when you do, Rafa’s standing right there, a few feet behind you.

“Hi,” you say, and you smile. You hope Jasmine is watching so that she’ll know you took her advice.

“We won!” he announces proudly.

“Yeah, I was watching. It was kind of a slaughter.”

He laughs. You like the sound of his laugh.

“Can I get you a burger or something?” he asks.

There is no way you could eat anything at the moment because your stomach is doing flip-flops.

“I’m not really hungry,” you say, “but maybe a drink?”

He checks the soda can in your hand and brings you another Seven-Up. You wish you were drinking something more sophisticated, but he’s got a Pepsi, so maybe it’s okay. It has to be okay. You’re not much of a drinker, and anyway, you have to drive home.

Rafa jerks his head toward some lawn chairs. “Let’s sit down.”

You follow him and take a seat, wishing you could think of something witty or clever or at least not idiotic to say, but nothing comes to you, and you turn your soda can in your hands.

Rafa lights a cigarette. Bad habit. “Jasmine tells me you’re an editor for Norland Press,” he says.

“Yeah, I’ve worked for them for the last three years.”

“You like it?”

“I do. It’s really interesting.” It’s easy to talk about your job. You tell him about some of the projects you’re working on, and he asks a lot of questions. You finally get up the courage to ask him about his writing and the possibility of an anthology.

He raises his eyebrows. “An anthology?”

“Why not?”

He shifts in his chair, and you realize he’s embarrassed. “I just never thought about it,” he says.

“Think about it,” you tell him.

“That’s what you do, right? You put together things for publication?” His eyes are focused intently on you. It’s starting to get dark, but you can see that tonight they’re blue.

“Exactly,” you reply.

“You think I have enough decent stuff to make up a book?”

You stare at him. “Is that a serious question?”

His face is quite serious, in fact. “Absolutely.”

“God, yes.”

He lights another cigarette, and blows smoke out into the warm air, then turns back to you.

“If you leave cigarette butts on the lawn, Jasmine will have your head,” you tell him, laughing.

“I’ve already been warned,” he says. “How is she in charge when she doesn’t even live here?”

“There’s no distance between Jasmine and Anthony,” you tell him. “There never has been.”

“No distance,” he repeats. “That’s an interesting way to say it.”

You shrug, a little embarrassed.

“Y/N, can I talk to you sometime about publishing?”

“Sure, anytime.”

“Not tonight.”

“Not tonight?’

He shakes his head. “I’d like to get to know you better,” he tells you, and your heart does a crazy thump-thump thing that you’re afraid he might hear.

“Me, too,” you say. “I mean …”

He laughs and waves his hand. “I know.”

His hand is still extended, and he takes yours in it. It’s like an electric shock going up your arm.

His eyes are on yours, his head tilted a little as if he’s considering something. His hair is falling in his face, and he shoves it back impatiently. He’s not letting go of your hand, and you know your breathing has quickened. “Come home with me,” he says, his voice low.

You know exactly what he means. You nod.

He stands up, and you walk with him hand-in-hand out the side gate without even saying goodbye to anyone. You’re halfway down the block before you say, “My purse is in the house.”

“Do you have your phone?”

You nod. “In my pocket.”

“Text Jasmine. We’ll get it tomorrow.”

We. You and he will be together tomorrow.

You have no idea what kind of car he has or where his apartment is because you can’t possibly focus on anything except him. The only thing you notice on the ride is that he grabs Tic-Tacs from the glove compartment and pops them into his mouth. It makes you smile.

He unlocks the apartment door and says, “Text Jasmine now so you don’t forget. You don’t want her to worry.”

As soon as you send the text, you silence your phone because you know Jasmine is going to text you back with about fifty heart emojis. Rafa’s texting too, and he looks up and smiles.

“Have to let Diggs know where I disappeared to.”

You’re starting to feel anxious. You’re not in the habit of going home with guys that you don’t know very well. The only two you’ve ever had sex with were long-term boyfriends, and you know you’re way out of your depth here.

Rafa takes your hand again, though, and you sit down with him on his rather ugly brown couch. He leans in, and his mouth is soft, softer than you thought it would be, and you try not to feel awkward as he kisses you. You sit there next to him on the hard couch, and you know you’re barely responding, but part of your mind is trying to figure out what to do with your hands, and the rest of it seems to be stuck in neutral.

He takes his time. Why did you expect him to go faster? Is it all those “their mouths crashed together in a passionate kiss” things you’ve read? There’s no crashing here. His lips move across yours gently. He kisses your top lip, your bottom. He gives a little hum as he tilts his head to do it again, diagonally. You like the way it feels. You might even be starting to relax.

He brushes your hair off your face with his left hand and tucks it behind your ear. He leaves his hand there on the side of your head, holding you in place, but there is no force to it. If you moved your head, he would let go. You feel his tongue sliding across your bottom lip, so lightly it’s barely touching, and you catch your breath. His right hand slides down your back to your waist, and he turns you, just a tiny bit more toward him. All the adjustments he makes are small.

You finally lift your right hand and put it against his chest, near his heart. You feel it beating, not fast, but steady: da-dum, da-dum. You wonder if yours is beating at the same tempo.

His tongue ventures between your lips, hesitates. He’s leaving it up to you. You open your mouth, because his mouth is so soft and gentle, and you want to keep feeling the softness. You realize that what he’s doing with his mouth is stirring the rest of your body, and you want it to continue. Why did you never understand what softness could do?

His tongue is even softer than his lips, slippery and agile. He licks your tongue as if he’s tasting it; maybe he is. He ventures to the back of your bottom lip and then the corners of your mouth. You’re afraid he might get bored and stop, so you put your left hand in his hair, and it’s so soft, so silky against your hand, but heavy at the same time. You move your fingers back and forth just to feel it, and then your fingertips press against his scalp and you are cradling his head in your hand.

Even though he hasn’t spoken a word, he is melting you. You want to ask him for more, but you’re afraid to interrupt him. He’s finding his way to you on his own, and you don’t want to change his path.

After a long time of kissing, he takes his hand from your head and touches the top button of your shirt. He pulls his head back and looks at you quizzically. “All right?” he whispers. You nod, but he waits. “Yes,” you say. “Please.”

“Please, please, please,” you want to say. “Please take off my shirt and my jeans and every piece of clothing I’ve ever worn. Please strip me naked. Please touch me everywhere as softly as you are touching my mouth.” You don’t say it. You focus on breathing as he starts with the top button and unbuttons your shirt all the way down, using only his left hand, not fumbling. Somewhere, he has learned to be very skillful at one-handed unbuttoning. You’re wearing a camisole under the shirt and a bra under that. When you got dressed this afternoon, it never occurred to you to choose easy-to-remove clothes. He smiles at the layers and pulls your shirt off by the sleeves, tosses it carelessly onto the floor. He lets go of you for a moment, pulls his tee shirt over his head. He’s not wearing anything under it. Did he plan better than you did? You’ve seen shirtless men before, of course, so your breath shouldn’t catch in your chest, and yet it does. You stare at his naked chest, at the fuzz of dark hair, the tattoo over his heart, the horizontal lines of his abs. All the trite words come to mind: carved, sculpted, cut. Why do we talk about men as if they were stone shaped by sharp edges?

You run your finger down the line of his sternum, and you feel him shiver. Not stone, then. You’re not good at this. You don’t know how to touch him. All you can do is be soft with him as he has been with you. Maybe you can melt him too.

He picks you up. _He picks you up._ You don’t expect it, and your head falls back. You’re looking at the ceiling, and its blank whiteness disorients you. Then you put your arms around his neck as if you were a child, or a movie princess, and then you are lying on his bed.

Your heart is pounding now. You think he must be able to hear it, and you don’t want him to. You want him to think that you are calm, that you are accustomed to this. You look at him, and there is nothing at all about him that frightens you. His face is as kind as it has ever been. He has kicked his shoes off somewhere, and he is barefoot now, barefoot and shirtless and beautiful. You’re still mostly dressed, and you don’t want to be. You pull your camisole over your head and drop it on the floor. You start to unzip your jeans, and he watches you, his lips parted, his face a little greedy. He likes watching you. You have the zipper down, and then you stop. He licks his lips, and you crave his tongue again. His eyes meet yours, and he understands what you are doing. His smile congratulates you, and then suddenly, he kneels over you and pulls your jeans off himself.

His mouth is almost on yours when he whispers, “I’m not that patient,” and yet he is. He is infinitely patient. He kisses you softly again, and reaches under you to unhook your bra, accomplishing it with another skilled one-handed maneuver. You wonder how many times he has done it, but you don’t really care. Then he puts his soft mouth on your breast, and you are melting again. His lips, his tongue hold and circle one nipple, then the other, back and forth, equal time. He holds your breast in his hand, thumb stroking the bottom, and fingers curled over the top as he sucks, and you are dissolving under him.

He pulls your underpants off, barely touching you as he does it, and then his jeans are gone. He’s not wearing underwear. Of course he’s not.

He pulls you to him, mouth to mouth, skin to skin, and he is so warm. You are spreading your legs before you even realize it, and you feel him smile against your mouth. He starts to move down your body, kissing your neck, your breasts, flicking his tongue in your navel. You can feel yourself quivering. You are nothing but warm liquid now, melted wax for him to dip his fingers in. He does. Two fingers slide into you as easily as they would enter water. He is not your first, but this, the softness and the heat, these are new to you. You need his fingers in deeper, and you push down on his hand. He looks up at you and smiles, and shakes his head no. “Not yet,” he says softly. He pulls his fingers out and spreads the wetness along your labia. Then, very gently, he opens you with his thumbs, and holds you open, and you are gasping with want as his soft tongue begins to lick your clit, back and forth and then in circles.

You’re making noise now, but you can’t possibly be quiet. You have never felt anything like this, never with another man, never by yourself in your bed at night. Every fiber in your body is tied to that tiny part of you, smaller than a fingernail, that he has bared to his mouth, that he is stroking and licking into an intensity that dazzles you. Everything in the room is whited out, and you are keening and pushing yourself into his mouth and then you fall into space, flying, soaring, spasm after spasm rocking through you, and you may be screaming.

Colors and shapes begin to reform in your vision, and you hear his hum of satisfaction. You realize that there are tears on your face, and you wonder if you are weeping because nothing will ever be that perfect again.

He is holding you, his arms comfortable and all of him so warm that you never want to leave. He kisses your neck and then your mouth, and then kisses the tears on your cheeks.

“You okay?” he murmurs.

“Yes.” You’re surprised that you still know how to make words. “Yes. I …” you don’t know how to say it.

“It was good for you,” he says. It is not a question.

“Yes,” you say again, and you feel fresh tears start. “I’m sorry, I don’t …”

“Sh, don’t worry. Sometimes that happens.”

It does? Why don’t you know that? Why does he know it?

He smiles, and his ocean-colored eyes are warm. “If it’s particularly – intense.”

Intense. The word takes on a whole new meaning.

His arms are still around you, and you slide one hand down his chest. You feel his quick intake of breath when he realizes what you’re doing. All you want is to make him feel something like he has just made you feel, and you take him in your hand. He’s not as patient now as he was, and he turns, propping himself up on his elbows so that you’re under him. Of all the places in the world, it’s exactly where you want to be. He closes his eyes and you start to guide him, and then he says, “Condom.”

“It’s okay,” you tell him. “I got the implant last year.” Last year when you were dating stupid Jared.

Rafa smiles and takes a breath, and then he slowly pushes in. You feel like you can’t get enough of him, and you tilt your hips so he can push deeper, and he does, and it's wonderful. He moves slowly at first, finding the angle and the rhythm, and then he puts his thumb on your clit and starts making little circles, and suddenly you’re climbing again, wetter than you’ve ever been in your life so that he can move faster and faster. It seems impossible that you could have another orgasm anything like that last one, but you let yourself glide into it, and Rafa rocks into you again and again. Then suddenly it overtakes you and your spasms pull him in, and you wrap your legs around his waist.

There are a few minutes when you both just lie there, still breathing hard, still tied together. He kisses you once more and pulls out gently, then pushes himself into a sitting position and fumbles on the nightstand. You hear the click of his lighter and the long intake of breath and you smell the smoke. It doesn’t bother you as much as you know it should. You lean on your arm to look up at him, and he glances down, his eyes gray-green now under his long lashes.

He runs his fingers through your hair and pulls you close to him, smiling. “You were spectacular.”

It’s not a word you ever expected to hear applied to yourself.

“Me?” you ask idiotically.

His arm is around you and his fingers play along your shoulder. “Mm,” he says, in the way that means _yes._

You laugh. “What about you?”

He frowns and shakes his head. “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Deflect.”

You think about it. You’ve always deflected compliments. Jasmine has yelled at you a million times for doing it. This time, though, you understand it in a different way.

You nod. “Okay.”

He says it again. “You were spectacular.”

You smile at him. “Thank you,” you say. “So were you.”

He grins and stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Yeah,” he agrees, and pulls you up next to him. He leans in and kisses you and you hold onto him and taste his smoky mouth.

Spectacular.

**Author's Note:**

> This whole thing is inspired by a couple of lines in Rafael Casal's song "Whoville." The title is from his musical work-in-progress, "Annie." The "spectacular" line at the end is a reference to his poem "Haberdashery."


End file.
